Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Scoober

Post 250, hooray! Here's to a million more.

As I sat this evening and looked at the clock, I realized that it was very late and that I hadn't really done anything with my day. I decided to re-check wikipedia's list of Ultimate throws, to see if there were any new ones I could work on. Our little group has got quite a few throws down, and our creative juices have worked hard to make sure that there's no possible way to accelerate a disk that we haven't thought of.

Lo and behold, there were at least three that I'd never seen before. The scoober, the thumber, and the viggiano. While we did have throws that we called the scoober and the thumber, those aren't the same throws that wikipedia talks about. I was super curious to figure out what they were all about, so I read up on them. It was pretty confusing because of all the lingo, and trying to visualize what they were talking about was nearly impossible. They had a few pictures, but nothing that helped. I really wanted to get it through, so I kept pounding on it.

Eventually I just had to stand up, grab a disc, and try it out myself. Step by step I read the lines and followed the instructions. After a few tries it finally made sense. I actually got it, I made it work, and I've got a new trick to show everybody come Friday night.

Finally getting the idea behind the throw was such a good feeling. It's one of those feelings that only comes around once a month. I call it my "C-Two-H-Two-Oooooooooooh!" feeling. You know that feeling where you stare at that chemistry problem for half an hour, knowing that there's an answer but being unable to find it? You stand up, get a drink, and come back to staring. 22 minutes later you find a trail, and excitedly you rush to follow it. Calculation after calculation follows. It fills up half the page, your TI-86 is on fire with more decimals than any chemist would ever need. Sweating from excitement and number-crashing you hit enter the last time, and there, standing before you in beautiful black pixels is the answer. You check to make sure it's reasonable, and bam, there it is. The number, the answer, the key. You pulled it off, against the odds. You slew the giant. 52 minutes, all but eight of them spent scraping and scraping to find a hole. You pulled it off, you're amazing.

It was that rush. I was so excited, I ran to tell my big brother. He was asleep, so I told my sister. It didn't matter though, I was giddy as a school girl. I figured it out.

A little while later I had a thought. It was quite the thought, if I do say so myself.

I thought to myself, "why not make an Ultimate knowledge base? You know, a website of sorts that shows step by step how to throw, with pictures and video, so nobody else has to fight through so much jargon on wikipedia?"

And then I thought, "Yeah, that's an excellent idea."

So that's my proposition of the day. I could make an Ultimate knowledge base, and share all the stuff that we've figured out. It'd be just like Kyle or I standing there next to you teaching you how to do stuff, but it'd be online, so you could check it out from the comfort of your chair, and you wouldn't even have to smell me or Kyle.

It'd be a good project for me this summer, and I could get everybody to help with it. The site could be pretty extensive; there's a lot to cover. Because I feel like a list, here's a list.

  • Throws section. This is where we'd show how to pull off every throw that we know. As we learn more, we'd add more. They'd be seperated into game-time throws and novelty throws. There'd be step by step instructions, with pictures every single step of the way, and then in-depth video at the end showing it done in its entirety. It'd be explained a million different ways, to make sure it'd be impossible to not get it. Oh yeah, it'd be a pretty in depth throw section.

  • Catches. This would obviously be smaller, but it's important to have its own section. We'd talk about the pancake, and have pictures and video of how to pull that off. We'd explain why it's so important to do it that way. Then we'd show how to catch high ones and low ones. Then we'd cover novelty catches. Same basic concept as above.

  • Gameplay. We'd have an easy run down of the rules, along with visuals. We'd talk a little bit about spirit of the game, and then we'd show people how to make gameplay work. Some strategies, the stack (if we choose to figure it out) and some other stuff like that. Make it understandable to new people.

  • Discs. This will be a cool part, because it'd just be a link repository of where to get good discs for cheap. We'd recommend the flashflight and the ultrastar. We'd explain why you need those discs.

  • Drills. This is one thing we'd have to work on, but we'd have some programs (once we figure them out) of how to make people better Ultimate players. We'd really have two different kinds, the game play kind, and the athletic kind. We'd show people how to cut, and give them a cutting drill. We'd give people a workout to make them jump higher, and we'd have video explaining everything. Step by step, easy easy.

  • Physics. This is probably my favorite part. My theory is that if people understand the physics behind the disc, they can make the disc do what they want. In order to throw well, you've got to be able to understand why the disc flies. This satisfies the nerdy demands that I have. It starts with T, and rhymes with dork.

That's probably not all, but that's what I can think of right now. It'd be pretty easy to pull off, I could even make it happen with a new blog or freewebs. I know a lot of you are thinking that stuff like this is already out there. You're totally right, it is. It's just not out there done by me. There's stuff like this that's probably better than what I can do, but that's not the point. The point is that I have a knowledge base here, and I want to share it. I have the resources to do so. I will phrase my stuff differently than the next guy. It's that difference that will help people. Maybe one guy can learn great from wikipedia, and maybe the next guy will learn great from me once he can't understand the wikipedia.

Basically: I want an excuse to talk a little bit more about Ultimate.

I don't know, I think it could be a cool deal. If nothing else it'd give me a chance to get a little bit more into it. It could help people, if it got traffic. It doesn't really matter if it doesn't though, as long as I know that it's there. Could be a cool deal.

I'm in quite the ultimate mood lately. Been thinking about it a lot, how I want to be a better player and all. That's one thing that I'd really love. I know that I'm decent right now, maybe even good. But I'd love to just dominate. I'd love to transition well and run faster and jump higher. It's something that I'm going to work on, because I really want to be better. I am happy with the progress I've made so far, it makes me really excited. But wow, I'm going to push the limits.

I think tomorrow I'll post my official run down on Frisbee Friday. The pros, the cons, all that. Nick did something similar, but I want to go a little deeper on it. It's an evaluation, something that they talk about at PLC. By sitting down and evaluating stuff, you can find out how to make it better. If one never sits down to think about what just happened, one can never really make any progress on it.

Sitting down and thinking about stuff is brilliant. I love doing it. So much good always comes from it. Maybe that's why I love meetings so much. You take the combined wisdom of everybody involved and figure out what you can do better. Oh yeah, it's good stuff.

Super super, it's time for bed. Maybe this Ultimate knowledge base will fly, maybe it won't. Either way, I'm really looking forward to Friday night: I got a new throw to show off.

2 comments:

Jaron Frost said...

Oh man! That would be sweet! I think it'd be majorly beneficial to those of us who struggle with Ultimate and aren't always around to ask questions, not to mention other kids on the internetz.

I still want to write The Ultimate Song. Hehe.

Nick said...

Yeah, I'm no good at evaluations.

Sowwy.